dropping slow
by oh sweet lily beans
Summary: And I shall have some peace there. -- Frank/Alice, rated for mentions of violence. Lines from "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" by W.B. Yeats.


**i. I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree **

He slides open the compartment door, asks politely _Is this seat taken?_ It isn't. He joins the girl inside.

She's not wearing Hogwarts robes, so he assumes she's a first year. Her hair is blond and curly, her eyes darting across the pages she reads. A hand still plump with childhood turns, flattens a page.

"What's that you're reading?" he asks her, genuinely curious and eager for friends.

She holds the book up: worn, and the cover has faded gilded letters on. _A Booke of Poetrie_, by Frank Neville.

"Oh, that looks interesting," he says, and it reminds him of something. "By the way, my name is Frank. Frank Longbottom." He holds out his hand, smiles at her.

"Well isn't that interesting?" she says, shaking his hand, holding the pages of her book down with her other elbow - the motion looks rather odd. "My name is Alice Morrison. You share a name with one of the world's most fascinating poets! I do say, Frank. Are you a first year?"

He nods.

"Oh, marvelous!" she exclaims, smiles and tucks a curl of blonde hair behind her ear. Her eyes shine deep gray. "I am as well. Perhaps we'll be sorted together?"

_(and live alone in the bee-loud glade.)_

**ii. I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore **

The first time he kisses her, her lips taste of Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, sweet ripe blueberries with a small hint of summer. He runs his tongue across her bottom lip and sighs lightly, she giggles quietly, and he pushes against her lips - she lets him in. He pushes his tongue against her own and she parts, coughing; her Drooble's Best Blowing Gum is in his mouth. She smiles at him with saliva-slick lips, opens her mouth to smile wider, and her teeth are light blue from the gum.

He blushes and smiles shyly. _Do you want another piece?_ he asks her, and hands the bag of sweet gum to her.

_(I hear it in the deep heart's core.)_

**iii. There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow **

"What will we name him?" he asks her, rubbing the swelled skin of her belly, a kick against his palm and he laughs.

"Well," she says, putting her hand atop his and looking up at him, tucking a curl of long blonde hair behind her ear, teeth tinted blue with sweet gum, "I was thinking Neville."

He smiles, remembering _Poetrie_.

"Because," she says, noticing the wistful look on his face and wanting to rectify his thoughts, "Frank Neville is possibly my favorite poet - aside from Yeats, you see - and of course I already have a Frank. So why not Neville? The men I love most in the world."

--

"Neville," he says to the sleeping child, soft features and pouty mouth, arms shifting in sleep. Testing the name on his tongue, and it is good, it sounds like a name he might say warmly when his son comes in from playing or reprimanding when he breaks school rules or congratulatory when he graduates.

"Neville."

_(And evening full of linnet's wings.)_

**iv. Dropping from the veils of morning to where the cricket sings **

She recites the lines of Yeats, makes them her mantras and declarations of love. She leaves him with _I will arise and go now_, every last day at Hogwarts and every last line of her letters to him over the summer, every morning when she leaves for work.

A flash of bright white skin, long black hair, and curses. _Crucio_ isn't spoken, or maybe it is, but Frank can only hear the names on his tongue. _Alice, Neville, oh, Neville, Yeats_. Alice is crying and saying their son's name and he thinks maybe if she reads a line of Yeats or Neville it will be alright.

His skin twists and he writhes on the floor, he can see out of the corner of his eye Alice with her hands _Imperio_-d behind her back, knees thrashing out against the floor in an effort to resist. Laughter, a mad woman. His skin crawls and breaks open, unleashing his soul and it strangles him. He doesn't say his son's name anymore, because he can't remember it.

Alice is already mad, tortured by a man, and he can hear even with the buzzing in his ears and the feel of his skin being dipped into ice, fire, tightening around his body, he can hear her:

_And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow._


End file.
